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Essentialism
On Essentialism If you don’t know what essentialism is, you can’t have a full understanding of racism, sexism or any other social justice issue. The concept of essentialism has many contexts; ones included here are relevant to social justice activism. --- Context #1: ‪#‎generativity‬ | Child-Development (mental development) In terms of how very young children perceive the world, they don’t yet have the capacity for well-informed ideas, but do the capacity for a fuzzy interpretation of the world. In other words, they only have the capacity for ‘essentialized’ ideas of the world. ’Essentialist thinking’ in this Child-Development context reflects a low-information stage of mental development. Emotion is fully functioning, while logic is not. ” The implications of psychological essentialism are numerous. Prejudiced individuals have been found to endorse exceptionally essential ways of thinking, suggesting that essentialism may perpetuate exclusion among social groups23 (Morton, Hornsey & Postmes, 2009). This may be due to an over-extension of an *essential-biological mode of thinking* stemming from cognitive development.24 Paul Bloom of Yale University has stated that "one of the most exciting ideas in cognitive science is the theory that people have a default assumption that things, people and events have invisible essences that make them what they are. Experimental psychologists have argued that essentialism underlies our understanding of the physical and social worlds, and developmental and cross-cultural psychologists have proposed that it is instinctive and universal. We are natural-born essentialists."25 Scholars suggest that the categorical nature of essentialist thinking predicts the use of stereotypes and can be targeted in the application of stereotype prevention26 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentialism --- Positive/Negative Parenting example. All children begin by thinking in an essentialized way, but children don’t get everything wrong. A child with positive behavior necessarily has used positive essentialist thinking. The significant upshot here is that essentialist thinking is mode of thinking that everyone, (adults included) uses from time to time. Making a ‘rough estimate’ is a form of essentialist thinking. While adults at times use essentialist thinking even when they shouldn’t, for a range of time children are completely limited to essentialist thinking. One positive/negative example is a child taught to views animals with an empathetic outlook may come to love animals, while a child taught with an unempathetic outlook may learn to fear and/or objectify animals. Emotions trump logic in such situations. Empathy is a consequence of compassion, so in the positive example compassion is at the root of the resulting logic. In the negative example the emotional root is self-interest. The emotional root determines the behavioral outcome. The difference of the root emotions compassion and self-interest lead to different outcomes in consequential emotions such as Fear and Happiness. With compassion at the root a child may fear for the safety of an animal. With self-interest at the root a sound the animal makes may provoke fear in the child. With compassion at the root a child may derive happiness sharing compassion with animals. With self-interest as the root a significant example is that a child might learn to derive happiness hurting animals. --- Context #2: ‪#‎activistunity‬ --- Sexism Consider the evolution of self-identity and the cognitive development of a child. A child comes into the world with a fuzzy view of everything. A child is assigned their role in the world while they are only capable of essentialist thinking. What you tell a child about gender is what they’ll believe it is. You have the option of creating a stereotyped or a universal interpretation of gender. From a compassionate view: “All people are the same where it counts. Males and Females just have a few different parts.” From a less mindful view: “Men are the authority in this household”. --- Racism What you tell a child about race is what they’ll believe it is. You have the option of creating a stereotyped or a universal interpretation of race. From a compassionate view: “All people are the same. All people were dark-skinned originally in Africa, and we got lighter skinned as we moved to other parts of the world. That was a long time ago. Now people from everywhere go everywhere else. That’s why we see difference sorts of people in our country” From a less mindful view: “It’s best to stay with your own kind”. --- Context #3: ‪#‎criticalthinking‬ | Critical Thinking for Activism Psychological Essentialism becomes a basis for deconstructing ideas as well as objects, people and events. Essentialism is something I look for in the character of an idea or belief. These are the 4 components of an essentialized idea (reworked a little from standard nerdspeak). 1. (function) --- “this thing/person/idea does only this” 2. (innate limit) --- “this thing/person/idea is only good for one purpose” 3. (unchanging) --- “this thing/person/idea will never change” 4. (difference) --- “similarities to other things/people/ideas don’t matter, because all that matters is the difference” I don’t want to dwell on those other than to say it’s a low-information idea. Generally in an essentialized idea, the understanding of the function of anything is limited in one context because the person doesn’t understand deeper contexts. It’s unchanging in one context because it’s assumed people have a limited understanding of cause and effect relationships. It’s assumed that there’s a level of black or white thinking that accentuates differences. The real key for critical thinking is component #3. (unchanging) In this context it translates to not paying attention to cause and effect, which is pretty much job #1 for critically thinking social justice activists. --- Examples Some example of essentialist thinking in adults. “You know how men are”, “You know how women are”. “You know how dark-skinned people are”, “You know how light-skinned people are”, “You know how Americans are” With regard to sexism and racism, essentialism erroneously connects biological features such as gender and skin-color to innate behavior. With regard to nationalism, essentialism erroneously connects nationality to innate behavior. Some example of essentialist thinking in activism. “All we need to do is follow Anarchism”, “All we need to do is follow Socialism” “All we need to do is vote Green” “All we need to do is vote for Bernie” “All we need to do is boycott the election” With regard to sectarianism and partisanship, essentialism erroneously connects all social justice solutions to a single concept. My partisan essentialist idea: “All activism needs is a critical thinking movement” My more rational idea: “Activism desperately needs a critical thinking movement”